"The American cowboy," writes Philip Ashton Rollins in the preface to this 1924 history, "has been a frequent subject for the dramatist, the novelist, the illustrator, and the motion-picture photographer" all of whom have "stressed the cowboy's picturesqueness to the exclusion of his other qualities…. The portrait is often charmingly presented, but it is not accurate." Here Rollins attempts to set the record straight—and who better to do so, as he lived among "Western ranchmen" from 1892 until the 1920s. He describes the beginnings of ranching in America, and how horses and cattle were raised. He details everything about the cowboy and his work—tools and weapons, clothes and tack, the specialized skills that he perfected, and the life he led while on the range. Rollins explains that there really was no typical American cowboy, definitively separating fact from fiction.

"Makes the authentic Old West a true-life adventure. That's because Philip Ashton Rollins—who wrote like a combination of Zane Grey and Studs Terkel—was there himself."—Steven D. Price